SUNDAY SPORT PRESENTS: THE 2012 POOR LIST

By SIMON DEAN

ANOTHER year of recession has made competition for the 2012
Sunday Sport Poor List stiffer
than ever with thousands more
achieving “super-skint” status.

Last week the Sunday Times
printed its “Rich List” – a breakdown
of the wealthiest folk in the UK.
Top of the rankings, with a £12.7billion
fortune, is steel magnate Lakshmi
Mittal, 61.
Despite his fortune falling by 27 per
cent in the past 12 months, he stays
ahead of Uzbek metals magnate and
Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov
on £12.3billion.
Chelsea FC boss Roman Abramovich,
45, came in third with £9.5billion –
down £800million on last year.

The wealthiest UK-born man is the
Duke of Westminster, 60, in seventh
place with £7.35billion – thanks to his
London property empire.
But at the other end of the social
and economic scale, British-based
substance abusers have been working
hard 24 hours-a-day to clamber up
Sunday Sport’s list of utter destitution.
Alan Jones, of the homeless travel and
accommodation site skipadviser.co.uk
said: “It is a tribute to this government
that more people than ever are fighting
to be on the Sunday Sport Poor List.
“Our paupers could even give the
Greek poor a run for the money that
they don’t have. Have you got 10p?”

ONE of the new breed of
thrusting young itinerants
shaking up the Poor List this
year is Alan who has scrambled
to the very depths of the social
pile with unseemly haste.
Whether slumped comatose
outside the former Kwik Save
store in Bolton or slumped
outside the former Kwik Save
store in Bolton while comatose,
Alan has made the progress
to penniless despair look like
child’s play.
But he’s not achieved this
position unaided. As Alan will
freely admit, some cider was
involved.
Three arrests for aggressive
vagrancy and a hospitalisation
for a previously-unknown strain
of tuberculosis have raised his
public profile hugely over the
past six months.
Alan’s pursuit of a one penny
piece into a storm drain during
the Bolton Floods led to him
making the lead story on North
West Tonight in September
2011 – the night of legendary
broadcaster Gordon Burns’ final
TV bulletin.

A WELCOME new arrival on the Poor
List for 2012 is Runcorn’s Dirty Billy – a
long-time resident under the bridge
which links the Cheshire town to the
even-less-lovely Widnes.
Local folklore says Billy is a former steel
erector from Rhyl who was forced to seek
other employment when he was caught
selling 400 tons of steel to a Triad gang
from Hartlepool.
His headlong plunge into the realm of the
preposterously-penniless was hastened by
a liking for strong cider with Windowlene
chasers.
A man of few words and fewer social
niceties, an incident with a dead Canada
goose washed up on the tidal reaches of the
River Mersey led to an encounter with
local magistrates.
Billy is supposedly kind to cats although
there is no documentary evidence of this.

REFLECTING Britain’s growing status as a
magnet for the pauperised jet-set, Chinky Cohen
is one of the new breed of non-domiciled UK
residents who don’t have a roof over their heads
in any country they wish to visit.
Claims that he swam to Britain from France
are contradicted by his noted aversion to water
– especially in the form of baths and showers.
He reached public attention last August when
he gave his name to a police officer in Luton and
was promptly arrested for using a word banned
under anti-racism legislation.
The case languishes in the courts to this day.
Despite his controversial and unacceptable
chosen name, Chinky is thought to hail from
South Korea – a theory given credence by the
fact he was found one evening salivating outside
Luton Home for Stray Dogs.
His favourite word is “necktie” which, uttered
in his bizarre oriental tongue, sounds rather
beautiful.

THE uninformed believe Mike won the epithet “Bucky” on
account of his rodeo-style cowboy hat and “gunslinger” lope.
In fact, his gait is the result of a groin injury which he
refuses to elaborate on, and his nickname comes from
his favourite tipple: Buckfast Tonic Wine.
A sometime resident of Kidsgrove, Staffs, Bucky is
believed to be the only person south of Hadrian’s Wall to
drink the caffeine-laced beverage so beloved to residents of
Coatbridge, Lanarks.
When he found £10 in some sick near a kebab van Bucky
invested it in bottles of Buckfast, telling pals he was going
to “lay it down as an investment”.
But the tonic wine only remained in his cellar (a cardboard
box behind Superdrug) for 40 minutes – before he drank
the lot and collapsed into tearful self-recrimination.

AN island of reliable insolvency
amid the choppy waters of worldwide
economic calamity, Norman’s bank
balance has remained stable at £0.
One thing rocking his leaky boat
is his growing terror of imminent,
world-ending cataclysm.
This was caused by pal Smelly
Arnold relating the plot of disaster
movie 2012 while in a confused state.
To avoid deadly solar radiation,
Arnold has lined the hood of his
anorak with tin foil and old fat
gathered from the outside drains of
Southampton’s fast food outlets.
One notable incident over the past
year came in September when a crew
member from BBC’s Who Do You
Think You Are? managed to unearth
Arnold’s surname. Alas, he forgot it
again 45 seconds later.
He still enjoys his cider.

THE BIG RISERS

BELFAST-BORN Scottish Jake, 57,
has seen his earthly wealth surge
in recent years.
Last year’s Poor List reported
that he found an almost-intact Curly
Wurly bar in late 2010.
And 2011 was another profitable
year. In August he discovered a dead
cat wearing a perfectly-serviceable
flea collar which he swapped for
half a tin of Brasso.

FINNEGAN Tony, 61, has been a voice
in the wilderness for the past year.
His emotional attachment to
plastic bags makes him a social
pariah as shoppers shun carriers in
favour of eco-friendly alternatives.
But, paradoxically, as carriers
become a rarer sight, Finnegan’s
collection of classic, early-80s bags
has risen in value – now being worth
almost half of a quarter of a penny.

THE BIG FALLERS

SHOUTY Mick from Manchester has seen
a litany of woe over
the past 12 months.
Sued for increased
maintenance by two of
his imaginary wives, he
lost control of his only
asset – a clothes peg.
The pauper’s issues
increased in September
when he dropped dead
and was partly eaten by
stray dogs before being
found by a jogger.

ALAS, it’s been a bad year for Goose, 71, of Middlewich,
Cheshire, who lost three of his favourite pebbles in a vicious
canalside fight with “The Noises”.
In September he almost acquired a nearly-full cone of
chips which had been dropped from a special needs minibus.
But he was run over trying to retrieve them from the road
and suffered a broken pelvis.